Check Yourself | Part Three

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KTC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.net.

Appreciate taking communion together as a church.

We're reminded of the of the body of God, the body of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, because it allows us to have healing and a new beginning, and there's a new testament, there's a new story for each one of us because of Jesus.

All our lives and go back to that moment and we can identify with what Jesus has done for us and who we are today because of what he's done.

Jesus never came to make us good, he came to forgive us and give us a new beginning and to give us life.

And that's why we celebrate today Jesus.

We celebrate what he's done.

Many of you have been asking a little, as some of you are on our in our prayer network and have probably heard that Pastor David had to go to the hospital this week.

And the intention is that he's there for the rest of the week.

What happened is he experienced, started experiencing like a real deep chill, and then it was accompanied by a fever.

And so he got a deep chill and then a fever, and it put him in a position where an ambulance had to be called and he had to go to the hospital, and they diagnosed him with like a viral pneumonia, a pretty significant pneumonia.

And as you know, he's been having challenges with his lungs, and so pneumonia itself has uh been very difficult for his body, related to his heart and his respiratory system.

And so he'll be there for a while.

We thank the Lord, he's in good hands.

We thank the Lord that uh the Lord brings us to a place where we can believe him for full recovery and rapid healing.

Amen.

Amen.

So we're believing together, and I just want to encourage you as a church to pray for him.

Pray for him that in that place, in that room, he would uh sense the joy of the Lord this morning.

The joy of the Lord.

It would come into that space and give him strength.

Uh he's not in shackles or chains, he's not in an inner prison somewhere.

He hasn't been beaten down, but uh he's feeling pretty low, and at that same place the praise, praise can lift him up as well.

So we're believing God for a miracle in his body, and we're just grateful that uh we have a congregation or community of people who can uh pray along with us for his healing.

Um, last week I actually enjoyed the outdoors.

I say I wasn't hunting because I never came back with anything.

So I was enjoying the outdoors.

I was getting refreshed in the mountains.

I was spending some time, you know, with some friends of ours, and we were just quadding all over the mountains, saw some beautiful animals, saw some great landscapes, ate some great food, had some good, uh, had shared some good laughs and stories.

And um, I was thinking about the the message I was gonna share this Sunday, and it's our series is really on check yourself.

And as we were quadding through the bush, I came on this sign, like pretty deep in the bush.

I don't know how this sign got out there, but it said this: it said, Private drive, no trespassing, hunting, no access without informed consent, video monitoring in effect, trespassers will be prostituted.

I thought, man, these guys take trespassing seriously around here.

I didn't know if I should just find another mountain, but then you know what's interesting?

He put his Gmail address down in case you're like really questioning, should I or should I not?

But there's a huge difference between doing prosecuted and being prostituted.

Either or I didn't want anything, so we just turned around.

I kind of threw it on Instagram.

I said, What should I do?

And my daughter says, I said, should I risk it?

Because there's a really nice hunting space above their that property there, and she said, Should I risk it?

And my daughter's like, Yeah, go ahead.

I'm like, Who are you?

No, no, no, no.

The answer is no, and always no in these situations.

Oh my goodness.

Check yourself, check your grammar, check your check your spelling, get somebody to check it, anybody to check it.

We just stopped.

I thought, no, they didn't.

The whole rest of the week, I I was a little concerned I was trespassing at prostituted, that'd be terrible.

Ugh, where do I go from here?

I didn't really think of the transition point from that moment there.

But uh you probably want to know where I was hunting, but I won't tell you.

On a rock somewhere out in the woods.

But in this middle of this series, we've been talking about the importance of checking your heart.

The scripture says that the heart is deceitful above all things, it's deeply, desperately wicked.

And who can know it?

And the fact is, the Lord knows our heart.

The Lord knows our heart.

But we don't always know our heart.

And we always have to come back to a place where we're checking ourselves.

Checking ourselves.

It's important, like iron sharpens iron.

It's good when other people check you, but sometimes you just gotta stop and you gotta check yourself.

What emotion am I carrying right now?

Is it healthy?

Is it unhealthy?

Is it God's emotion or is it not God's emotion for me?

What thoughts am I thinking?

Is it God's thoughts for my life or is it some other thoughts for my life that oppose God's purpose for my life?

Where is my where is my plumb line?

What is truth in a matter?

And should I be following that truth with all diligence?

The scripture actually says to guard your heart, because out of your heart flows the issues of life.

There are springs of life that will come from your heart.

The scripture says that man can look at an appearance of an individual, but it's God who judges and knows the heart.

So we have to assess ourselves on the basis of our heart.

What is your heart like?

Have you done a heart check?

Have you checked your checked your your cart?

Your heart cart?

Check it.

What are you carrying in there?

Are you carrying forgiveness?

Are you carrying bitterness?

Are you carrying greed or are you carrying generosity?

Are you carrying kindness or are you carrying uh are you carrying an animosity and a suspect of people?

What are you carrying in your cart?

In your heart.

Check it.

Check yourself.

So today, our challenge is really to look at our lives and actually assess it and say, Lord, what are you wanting for me?

What are you wanting in me?

What are you wanting to work through me?

That I may be carrying unknowingly, uh subconsciously, I'm carrying things that are actually affecting my life and the way of life that I have.

So the scripture says this in Psalm 16, 11.

It says, You will show me the path of life.

For in your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

There is a path of life that brings great joy.

There's a path of life that will bring great fulfillment and great pleasure into your life.

There is a path that you can follow that will go to the a place of great uh success and prosperity and a place of great blessing.

And there are also other paths that you can follow that will take you from that destination.

So the scripture says it's very clear.

It says, it's in his presence there is joy, and in his presence, and it is in his right hand there is pleasure forevermore.

So the challenge today is that we need to stop and say, all right, are we in his presence?

Are we finding our pleasure from his right hand?

Are we finding our joy in his place?

And why is that a better way than our way of just chasing after pleasure, chasing after joy, chasing after it in our own strength, because I'm pretty good at finding it.

Why is this better?

So the stress, let me just talk to you a little bit about where the world is at right now.

The stress and strain and busyness of modern life in society we're living in has developed.

It's interesting because the doctors have clinically diagnosed this as a condition called anhedonia.

An meaning without hedonia is where we have the the means meaning pleasure.

So anhedonia means without pleasure.

And there are people today who are actually carrying this condition called anhedonia.

They're living life without the ability to find and without the ability to achieve pleasure.

They've lost the ability to attain it.

They're walking numb with all their sense in all their senses.

They're trying to find it.

And it is this condition where people are searching for happiness but not able to find it.

They're searching for pleasure in their own strength, but not able to achieve it.

They're living cheerless, they're living joyless, they're living in an existence that's just there, present.

But there's no substance.

And so some of these areas where they're finding it is in a social anhedemia.

And this social place is where you can be surrounded with people, but you're not able to connect or find pleasure in the connection.

So that's why you'll find at Thanksgiving people sitting around, uh, they're together as a family, but they're sitting on their phone alone.

Anhedinia.

A place where they're just trying to find pleasure when the pleasure is actually right, the opportunity for it is right in front of them.

A musical anhedonia.

This is like an artistic expression where they are able to look at a landscape or sit by a babbling brook or whatever it may look like, look at uh creation, and they can't find the pleasure in that creation.

Listening to a song doesn't create pleasure, doesn't bring joy, doesn't bring a sense of awe and wonder.

Anhedonia.

Another one is an intimate anhedonia.

This is where people have lost the ability to find intimacy, a closeness.

And we know our counseling centers are in a position right now where they're having to really work with couples to actually help them find intimacy because they've sought pleasure in so many different places in so many different ways that they don't know where to find it in themselves, in their in within their own marriage.

It's an enhedonia, a pleasure place where we can't find it.

So the the pleasure center of the brain, the way we receive happiness and feel joy is because something happens in our brain.

It's a chemical release of dopamine.

It's quite the weekend to talk about dopamine.

Um, but it makes you feel happy naturally, right?

And it's like that feeling that you get when you're leaving on vacation and you're going away somewhere where you can enjoy and get away and get on a beach, you get that feeling of like, man, I've got that happiness.

But the process stops when you begin to rely on that feeling to actually bring sustained happiness.

It's not enough, it's it's ever declining.

And so what happens is you start, you hit that high, and then you start looking for that next high the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and you're working hard at being able to achieve this place of happiness and pleasure.

And that's why today the world has even said, even this last week, with the legislation and the and the uh legalization of marijuana, they're just saying, you know what, go for it, medicate yourselves, find happiness.

If you can find it with marijuana, go ahead.

And we know what happens.

After a while, that that drug addiction, that all of a sudden one drug leads to like a higher high that you need, and a higher high requires another high, and eventually you start pushing the boundaries.

And and as we've seen in different cultures and different nations, they just decide you know the next step is just like let's legalize all drugs.

Let's not hold a bar as to what we can or can't have, just whatever makes people happy, let them go ahead and try and chase it down.

So it takes something uh to get our attention today.

And when you relate to your faith, your faith is in a place right now where it's being over, it's it's being uh competing or it's competing against all these other influences.

And you're you're having to find yourself in a place where you're seeking God, but you've got all these other influences that are demanding your attention.

Uh one of the uh the screens, the calendars, your the things that are constantly trying to grab your attention.

These are items in our lives that we embrace and we enjoy, and they do have a level of making our lives easier.

But if we're not careful, we'll miss the fact that God is right here, right now, in front of us.

And we can be in the presence of a worship service and worshiping God, and God is here in this place, and he's singing over us.

The Bible talks about songs of deliverance, and we're totally absent, and we're totally numb to the fact that he is present in this place.

Because we've started embracing all these different distractions in our life, it's the path of life, the Bible says, there is a path of life that brings life, and there's a path of life that takes us away from God's pleasure and away from God's joy, and there's a path of life that brings us towards it.

So, in this generation, interestingly, the greatest, the greatest fear is not disease or death.

The greatest fear, in fact, is boredom.

People are afraid to be bored.

That's why they they take their phone to the bathroom.

I don't even think, what am I gonna do in here for like three minutes or ten?

Like, I don't even know.

What what if what if I'm just sitting in the bathroom and I have nothing to do?

Grab my phone.

I can play a game or check up like there's a constant influence of what what I have to be connected.

I have to be connected, or else I'm not gonna find that pleasure without that connection.

Um my daughter was away on a camp uh youth conference this week, and she said that they were staying at billets' houses, and and uh she was with a number of girls, and there were these girls who were like, Man, the first thing they wanted when they got into the house was, can I have the Wi-Fi sign, like Wi-Fi password?

And I think the billets were like pretty smart.

They're like, Yeah, you know, I don't think so.

I don't think you need it because they they don't want to gauge what they're actually looking at on Wi-Fi and stuff.

And my daughter was like, it was just like eyes were scaring, where's that Wi-Fi box that has a little passcode written on the back of it?

I just want to chat with my friends and talk to my mom and connect, and they're they were searching it out because who would have known that that like 10 years ago though, or 20 years ago, that Wi-Fi, if you didn't have Wi-Fi, look out.

Where's the connection?

So, my daughter, when she was at this conference, it was really great opportunity.

I love when my daughter comes back from youth night or conference.

She comes back from usually Natalie goes down and picks her up and brings her home.

And uh I'm just I'm at home and I'm waiting for her, and she comes.

I always know, like the garage door closes, you hear the car door slam, and she's just running up the stairs, and she is just like literally high on life.

It's just number 10.

She's like running on 10, and she just comes up and she's telling me all about the conference, all about her youth pro youth night.

And you know what?

I said, Well, what did you do at this camp?

What where did Malachi and the team take you?

And she's like, Well, there weren't that many games.

We listened to eight different messages on God, and my hands dad are so sore because I was taking notes and I was writing notes, and but she was like, she was high on life.

When's the last time you've sat through eight sessions?

When's the last time you've gone through a space where you're like, you know what, I'm actually gonna pay and go to an event where God can speak to me.

I'm gonna press in from 8:30 in the morning till 10:30 at night.

Like she's texting me, hey dad, I'm okay, I'm at the house, blah, blah, blah.

At 12 o'clock at night, I'm like, what's going on?

You should have been in bed, you know.

But I'm like, this is camp, but this is like her high on God, like because she realized and she's catching it that in the presence of the Lord there's fullness of joy.

And in his right hand are pleasures forevermore.

So don't get distracted with any other thing.

Find it in God.

Find it in God.

So my my PowerPoint to you today is if you find God, if you find Jesus, you'll find joy.

If you find Jesus, you'll find joy.

What is this joy like?

Well, let me tell you about joy.

Joy is not about how you feel, it's about who you know.

Joy is not an emotion.

Joy is God's strength in the presence of difficulty.

It's in the presence of celebration.

Joy is there for us.

Do you know that Paul talked about joy in the place, in a place of prison?

In Philippians, he said, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again I say rejoice.

And do you know where he was?

Locked in a prison cell.

Because the joy of the Lord is that which fills your heart when you don't even, everything around you doesn't indicate that you should be joyful at this moment.

Joy is for us in times of difficulty, in times of suffering, in times of pain.

That is where joy comes alive in us.

Joy of the joy of the Lord becomes our strength.

Why do we need strength?

Because we're weak.

And that's when the joy comes in, in our weakness and lifts us up out of weakness and gives us a haha in our heart.

We don't look for joy like the way the world looks for joy.

We don't look for joy in our social network or in our who we know or or how much money we have or what influence we may carry.

We don't find our joy in those things like the world does.

The world would say, you'll have joy if you have a white picket fence and a house that looks like this, with a two car garage and a bank account with the X amount of dollars in it.

That's where you'll find joy.

The scripture says you will not find joy in those things.

You will find joy in who you know.

You'll find joy in Jesus.

Jesus, it's with Jesus that we find joy.

Joy is not an act of will, it's not an act of willpower.

You can't like just sit get up in the morning, like, I'm gonna be joyful today.

It's not gonna work like that.

The joy of the Lord is the fruit of the Spirit.

It means you get into the presence of God, and when you're in the presence of God, his joy fills your heart.

So sometimes you wake up in the morning and you need to find rejoy.

You need to rejoy, find joy again.

And so the Bible says, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again I say rejoice.

And how do you find that rejoy?

You go back to the Lord, you go back to the place where you can find it.

And David, even when he sinned, he said, Lord, restore unto me my joy.

Restore back to me the joy of my salvation.

Restore back to me because I need it.

And I'm not gonna find it anywhere else.

Joy is irrevocable.

It's a power that no one can take from you.

The scripture, uh, the history talks in in um about the Christians in Rome when they were being persecuted, taken into the Colosseums and fed to the lions.

And he was said, it's the Bible says that as the Christians walked out into the Colosseum, they began to sing and have joy in their heart.

And it was an amazement to the to the audience that the Christians didn't die like other people died.

How can they carry a joy in their heart when they were facing death?

Only God, only God can bring joy and bring strength in times of utter utter um utter calamity.

So this is what we say.

Rejoice.

Rejoice.

Romans 5, 3 says this we rejoice in our suffering.

When I'm suffering, the last thing I want to do is rejoice.

I'm just being honest with you.

The last thing I want to do when I'm facing challenge is rejoice, find joy, find the Lord in that moment, and allow him to fill my heart with joy again.

Fill up the tank.

Thank you, Lord, for your joy this morning.

It's difficult.

My dad goes into the hospital.

He has taken out, and I'm thinking, oh Lord.

He's 65, he's not very old.

He's not, he's not old at all.

He's like a young senior.

And I look at it and I go, you know, here we are, and we're we're thinking about, man, Dad, you're a senior now.

This is great.

You get to go hunting for different animals at earlier seasons, and this is gonna be excellent.

You know, and he's like, we're making plans.

And but the thing is, when he goes into the uh an ambulance, comes and picks him up, where do I find joy?

Because I'll tell you what my tendency is to do, to sit back and sink and sulk and break down into a place of like, oh man, what's it gonna be like?

What if my dad doesn't make it through this?

What if I'm left on my own as kind of like the patriarch of our family?

I'm too young for that.

What's this like?

And I find joy again.

Rejoice, Brody.

Find your joy.

Because we aren't those who don't have a hope.

We are of those who have a hope.

So I can find joy because of him.

Amen.

That's the joy of the Lord that begins to fill our heart.

Joy flourishes in a place of affliction.

I love, you know, we've been talking about Paul and Silas today.

Paul and Silas, they're they're quite the examples because there's they're in an environment of actual persecution.

They've done everything right.

They're walking around, they're tolerant, they're walking through a city, sharing the good news politely to people, and there's a woman behind them that's literally calling out to them, listen to these men, they're pee, they're they're prophets of God, listen to them, listen to them.

And for days, she's she's uh a fortune teller employed by these people uh in the city, and she's actually telling the for like telling the community about uh Paul and Silas.

And so they walk and she's yelling behind them, listen to them, they're so great, listen to them what they're saying.

You gotta hear what they're saying.

And eventually Paul is just upset, and the Bible says he turns around and he casts the tormenting spirit out of this woman.

Well, now she can't, and everything's quiet, and he goes on with his day, but all of a sudden, that lady who was employed by another individual is pretty upset, and he's in charge of the commerce in the community, and so he gets all his other businessmen together and they all rage against Paul and Silas and actually stir the whole city up to a place where they actually capture them, and and they say, throw them in the darkest part of the cell, like put them in the inner portion of the prison, the dark part of the part of the prison, and and keep an eye on them, tells the guard, keep an eye on this guy.

They lock them in chains, feet, hands in chains are sitting in the dark after doing what God's told them to do.

How many of you have been in that position?

I thought I did what you told me to do, God, and look at where I am.

And in that moment, thank you, Lord.

Do they have a choice?

Do they take the path of life?

Do they choose the path of life?

And the Bible says they began to rejoice in the Lord.

They began to find their joy again in God.

Okay, I did what was right, and I started getting hate mail over it.

I started, I did what was right, I did what you told me to do, and I started getting death threats.

I did what you told me to do, and people are knocking on my door and leaving me angry messages on my phone.

Uh they're slamming my emails, they're rallying people against me with accusations and lies.

And I did what you told me to do, God, and they put their hands in the block, and instead they said, they said, you know what?

I'm gonna make a decision in my heart, I'm gonna check myself.

I'm not gonna carry this.

I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.

Hey, and they're like in the they're in the stocks.

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, and again I say rejoice.

They're beaten up, I'm beaten up, and again I say, rejoice.

People are against me everywhere, but again I say, rejoice.

Everybody hates me, and again I say, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.

And he's like literally going on.

They're they're sitting and locked, locked in stalks.

Rejoice, rejoice.

Like, I don't know how they do it, little stubbies in their hearts.

But they they began to sing praise unto God.

Rejoice, rejoice, find that joy, and that as we heard today, that's when an angel came into their prison.

That's when the Lord visited them, and that's where their stalks blasted off, and the chains broke down, and the doors opened up, and freedom came to them because they made the choice to walk the path of life.

And they found, you know what, we can sit here in our pain, and we can sit here in our suffering, and we can complain, or we can stop and rejoice in the Lord and find our joy in the Lord.

How can you be singing a song right now?

Look, you're a Roman citizen, you've been treated like uh you've been treated like a prisoner.

You were you were uh taken to prison on false charges.

You were all these things, you didn't do anything wrong.

And again in the darkness, you're you're being guarded and in the inner cell, treated like like a problem.

And again, I say rejoice.

Rejoicing.

It comes in those moments of time when you're actually in challenge.

You're challenged.

It's not natural, but it is spiritual.

Christian joy doesn't come naturally, it comes spiritually, it comes naturally to the believer who's got the spirit in them.

But you've got to make a choice to walk that path of life.

And today I'm telling you, I don't want to walk the path where I'm saying, you know what, I'll just find it in another bottle, I'll just find it with another relationship, I'll just find it in a different club, I'll just find it in all these other places, I'll find it with another spouse, I'll find it with a different church, I'll find my joy somewhere else.

I've gone too far.

I'm gonna say, Lord, I'll find my my, I'll find my satisfaction in you, I'll find it in Jesus, I'll find it in your right hand, I'll find it by following your path, I'll find you today.

This is the joy of the Lord.

And if we're not careful, church, we'll slide into that place where all of a sudden you come to church and things become common.

The Spirit of God is just a common thing, and the word of the Lord is common, and the anointing becomes common, and you stop, you stop recognizing the the presence of God, and in his presence there's joy, and you're gonna stop seeing the presence of God, and if you're not careful, you'll become someone who's lukewarm, and in that lukewarm space, you'll you'll stop and you'll go, okay, where where am I at?

Where am I at?

I'm just I'm just living this half-baked Christianity.

And you'll walk into church, and after a while you'll go, you know what, I don't feel anything anymore.

Maybe God isn't real.

No, you've stopped.

You've stopped rejoicing.

The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and a joy in the Holy Ghost.

You you have to have that joy, church.

You have to get it.

And I'm saying you get it by you're saying, well, my situation doesn't really look like I can get it.

No, I'm saying you don't get it by a different situation.

You get it because of Jesus.

You get it from Jesus.

So guard your heart, get it through Jesus.

Don't pursue, pursue, pursue.

Yeah, other things.

Pursue Him, and you'll find the joy.

I want to just tell you here today.

Natalie always tells me, it's like, well, leave the church with something.

Like, how do you find it?

Like, give give me some easy steps on how to find this joy.

I'm gonna tell you three things that you can do today to find the joy.

Surround yourselves with those people who practice joy and join in.

The scripture says this rejoice with those who rejoice.

If you don't know how to dance, get around other dancers and just kind of shake a little here, shake a little there, do a little floss, whatever it is.

Just shake, like get around the get around those people who dance.

If you have trouble finding joy, get around people who are are full of joy.

Double down on good relationships.

That's it, that comes from the pulpit today.

You need to be around people who are in good relationship with the Lord and with others.

Double down on those good relationships and rejoice with those who rejoice.

If they're happy, you should be happy.

If if if they they find pleasure in something, ask them how you find that pleasure.

I want to be happy and in that place with you.

Number two, stir up rejoicing.

Stir it up, find your purpose and align with it.

The scripture says this this is the day that the Lord has made.

I will rejoice and be glad in it.

So this is the day that the Lord has made.

I will, I will rejoice today.

I will rejoice, I will rejoice, I will rejoice, I will rejoice, I will rejoice today.

I will not moan and complain, but I will rejoice.

Hallelujah! I will rejoice, I will sing, I will dance, I will rejoice.

Find your purpose, align with it.

Thank you, Lord, for the call on my life.

Thank you, Lord, for who you've called me to and where you've brought me.

Thank you, Lord, for our church, thank you, Lord, for my spouse, thank you, Lord, for my children.

I will rejoice in today because you've made it for me.

Thank you, Lord.

I'm a part of your purpose, I'm a part of your calling, I am where you've called me to be.

I will rejoice.

Thank you, Lord.

And lastly, express gratitude.

The Bible says this make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.

I want you to stand right now, if you could please.

And I want to hear from you, because I've already sang today.

I sang last time, I want you to give the Lord a joyful noise.

What does that look like?

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

The Bible says it's an expression of gratitude, it's an expression of blessing, it's an expression of joy, it's an expression of gladness.

You give the Lord a joyful noise.

Woo! Thank you, Lord.

Yes, God, you're awesome.

You're so I'm so blessed to be with you.

It's a blessing give unto the Lord.

Uh make a joyful noise unto the Lord, until the whole earth, until the whole earth celebrates along with us.

Because joyfulness, joyfulness is contagious.

You get around people who are full of the joy, and it's like more lord, more lord, more lord, more lord, more joy.

Charles Finney said it was like waves that crashed into him, and he had to ask the Lord to stop lest he die.

It's like a wave after wave after wave.

Thank you, Lord, for the joy.

Thank you for the kingdom of God, righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost.

That's the kingdom of God.

That's the king of the kingdom.

We don't serve a sad, down, depressed, broken, weak God.

We serve a God who's a victor.

We serve a God who's a champion and a king.

And a God who comes and he accompanies, he joins in the praises of his people.

He dances over injustice.

He laughs at kings who rise, who stick their face against him.

He laughs.

He sits on his throne and laughs.

And he's like full of joy.

You don't know your next stop.

You don't know where God is taking you.

You don't know where God is going to move you next.

He's moving you to greater and greater and blessing after blessing after blessing.

He's moving you.

The Bible says your glory will get greater.

It will grow until the height of the noonday sun.

That's where the peak of it will be.

God's got a plan for you.

He's got a plan for the church.

He's got a plan for our community.

Amen.

Kelowna is God's got a bless a plan for this place to bless it and keep it.

Amen.

Father, we thank you today for your for who you are.

We thank you today, Lord, that we're not alone, but we're with you today.

And being with you, Lord, we have righteousness and peace and joy.

We have that trifecta.

We have perfect union, Lord, because of who you are.

We thank you for the cross of Christ.

We thank you today for forgiveness of sin.

We thank you for a new beginning.

We thank you, Lord, that uh the old is passed away and the new can come.

And the new has been given to us.

Lord, we have a new beginning.

We can be born again fresh into your purposes for our life.

And we thank you today for it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Brian, come on up.